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Re: [Synoptic-L] Lk 14:23, 14:16-24

As someone seeing some of the exchanges I have a technical matter to add to the discussion on the parable in Luke 14:16-24. for APO MIAS in Luke 14:18, there

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, Jan 28, 2004

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As someone seeing some of the exchanges I have a technical matter to
add to the discussion on the parable in Luke 14:16-24.

for APO MIAS in Luke 14:18, there is a Hebrew text at Qumran
with this idiom. 4Q462 line 8 has me' eHad, literally "from one", meaning
"immediately". Previously, the closest background for such an idiom came
from Syriac, an Aramaic dialect quite far from the Land. The reason that
the
Qumran evidence is helpful is that all story parables in rabbinic
literature
were in Hebrew. 100% out of a few thousand examples. That is a little item
frequently overlooked in NT background introductions. Anyway, it fits
the parable in Luke 14 nicely.

If someone observes that the Greek is feminine and the Hebrew masculine,
that leads to further technicalities:
In Greek the MIAS obviously tied to something feminine, perhaps WRA 'hour,
slice of time', perhaps RIPH 'blink', or perhaps by analogy to another
idiom
(pe eHad 'unanimous' becomes APO MIAS FWNHS. If this is coming from
translationese we won't be able to say definitively why a feminine was
chosen.
One item must always be placed in conjunction with other items to form a
clearer picture.

In general, translators smoothed out their texts. (I'm not saying Luke was
the
translator. On the contrary, someone else was, but he became Luke's source)
For example, in Genesis the ubiquitous 'and' gets put in KAI too often for
Greek
sensitivities but around 2.4 times per sentence level KAI the translator
jumps a
hurdle and uses DE.
Likewise, the ubiquitous Hebrew 'narrative simple past/aorist' gets
smoothed
into imperfects here and there. Hebrew was aspectually monotone (that is,
it didn't normally take the extra energy to mark aspect, contrary to
grammar
books which would have you think that that is all they thought about) and
Greek tweeked some of the edges but the un-greekness is still felt. Greek
lives and breathes aspect, you can't say anything without making an
aspectual choice so the LXX becomes rather flat Greek against those
expectations.

To repeat what needs repeating: the only responsible methodology for
getting
a handle on Luke's style is to compare Acts 15:36-28 with the gospel.

As for Luke 14:16-24, I can't see it as coming from Matthew. As a support
to
APO MIAS, the word ARXASTHAI 'to begin' is probably (75%) not Lucan but
from a source. Luke's gospel is much heavier with ARXASTHAI than 2Acts.
While 'begin' is from a source, it is not from Mark or Matthew. (It is not
significantly part of the Hebrew Bible and LXX either, since the "begin"
style
grew within Hebrew during the 2nd Temple period after speakers became
trilingual with the highly aspectual Greek. It was one way to lexically
compensate for an aspectually-poor style.)